More Ugly Questions
Did you enjoy your “peace dividend”?
Did you enjoy your “stimulus” money?
Do you think its wonderful that our Congresspersons and other federal officials constantly strive to make “our” lives better?
Isn’t a great example of bipartisan statesmanship that all our leaders got together to save “our” economy by giving billions to the New York banks and stock speculators?
Isn’t it good that both parties get together when necessary to kill dangerous people—as at Ruby Ridge and Waco?
Who* said: “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." (This was before there was TV.)
How many serious books have you read this year? (Books by Glenn Beck, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Mitt Romney, or Stephen King don’t count.)
Why is "Sojourner Truth" the second best known figure in American history among school children? Who is first?
Remind me again, why did "we" invade Iraq?
What was Michelle Obama's salary in Chicago?
Can you name two plagiarists who were until recently members of the U.S. Senate?
(This may all seem like old news. But Americans, especially Republicans, have such short memories that they have to be reminded over and over again. Test: Do you remember Scranton? Two years from now will you remember Pawlenty?)
nosreffeJ samohT*
Entries(RSS)
I've been living on my Peace Dividend for 10 years. It is almost as substantial as those lavish social security payments I am waiting for
One of my students at a little private school of a mere sixteen students entered the regional social studies fair with a paper and poster on John C. Calhoun's concurrent majority. The winner of the regional social studies fair that year had a paper and poster on Hanna Montana. According to my student, one of the judges, a professor from a local "university," told her that her topic would not be in a college curriculum. One supposes that Hanna Montana might be or might have been.
I'm grateful that the comment capability is back again; I often times learn as much from the give and take here as in the articles themselves. That said, Dr. Wilson, as is his wont, points out the tragic absurdity that is the era we inhabit. Having reached my fiftieth year, I often have to rub my eyes and pinch myself at our seeming bent to commit suicide as a people, as a culture.
I should know better, but it's one thing to study this tendency in societies of the past and quite another to be living within one as it's happening.
I'm not counting on seeing my peace dividend. My stimulus money went into savings where it can lose value with the rest of my savings. It's all wonderful that our overlords work so hard to make our lives better and better. My guess for best known American historical figure to school children is Crispus Attucks. Michelle Obama, as vice president for community and external affairs of the University of Chicago Medical Center, made $316,962 a year. And she was worth every penny, I'm sure.
Comments restored. Hip hip hurrah!
I suppose there is a good reason to forbid hyperlinks; does this extend to typing out or pasting a url?
Do Cannibals All, Dr James LeFanu's books on medicine and evolution
(one wonders, can he be a descendant of Sheridan?) and Ostroski's Democracy and the Party System in the US count as serious?
Since Dr Wilson did me the good turn of reinrtoducing me to George Garet's work, I have determined to look up Master's book on Lincoln.
I remember being an undergrad during the end of Glasnost and the USSR. The so called upcoming peace dividend was alway a major topic in any class about American politics, or the politics of the 21st century class I had taken at EMU. Even after the Gulf War, and Kosovo, there was still talk about this when I was in grad school. Every one was so elated about the prospect that the saved billions in defense spending would go to education or infrastructure. So much for that!!! Stupid wars and more untold waste for domestic spending has thrown those those illusions off the cliff into the abyss. If Washington and Jefferson could be transported to this time via time machine they might go back to 1776 and say "Screw it, let's stay with England!" We have lost our way so badly, I don't think even voting for a true 3rd party opposition will reverse our march towards destruction.
Another astute and amusing post by the indomitable Professor Wilson.
I admit, however, to some confusion over his last question concerning two plagiarists who until recently were members of the Senate... I'm guessing that means 98 other plagiarists remain in the Senate?! I say this only because I'd be unable to name any who could develop or sustain an original thought; not a welcome point to make on a holiday weekend that celebrates the Founding Fathers.
At any rate I'm proud to say that my serious reading this year includes three volumes either edited or written by Professor Wilson. Time well spent indeed.
Maybe Chronicles could sponsor a new section in the magazine that would invite politicians to review the books they have claimed to be carrying to the beach or to have virtually memorized. You could start with Bachman explaining Austrian economics while Gore discusses Stendahl. A truly bipartisan look at hypocrisy.
Our elite rulers would call me simple-minded – for after all, name-calling and other marginalization tactics are all our elite rulers have to resort to – but I have yet to understand how shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars into a collection of pork-barrel projects, to be paid for in the long term, and I do mean LONG term, by the American taxpayer, constitutes “stimulation” of the American economy. I can understand how it would ruin and destroy the middle class financially, but not economic “stimulation.” That’s a “no” in answering your question, Dr. Wilson (wink).
I would guess that either Hearst or Mencken said that.
My recent reads in the past year are City of God by St. Augustine, Conceived in Liberty by Murray Rothbard, and right now I’m on American Political Writing during the Founding Era, edited by Charles Hyneman and Donald Lutz . . . REAL books, in other words.
Sojourner Truth is a perfect model for rebellion against and eventual destruction of American traditions and institutions. Martin Luther King, Jr. absolutely HAS to be #1.
Why did the American imperial government – not “we” – invade Iraq? To pad the pockets of Halliburton and defense contractors.
Plagiarist former U.S. Senators? I don’t know of any but I’m sure most of them are or have been at some point in time. Ted Kennedy is my first guess.
Long and detailed memory is an indication of good citizenship, so I hope to stem the tide of the American masses during the rest of my life with a good and sharp memory of everything that happens around me. I believe William Scranton was a so-called Rockefeller Republican governor of Pennsylvania who made a short bid for the White House in 1964.
We obviously permit the writers to insert hyperlinks, though we do not encourage it. As I have told my friend Peter Brimelow many times, I cannot read VDARE because of the distracting and usually useless hyperlinks. Nothing is too trivial or too obvious to be highlighted. It is the tendency of the aspiring or failed academic to think footnotes guarantee authenticity. They do not. With comments, we don't allow them for a simple reason. People are continually inserting links to sites that are either stupid or evil. If we knew how to make exceptions for references to literary sites, documents, etc., we would, but it is a little annoying to wake up in the morning and find that your site is being used to advertise very wrong-headed stuff. What happens, now, or at least what used to happen is that such comments went into moderation and I or someone approved them if they were within our very broad and flexible guidelines. I'll check to see if that is still the case.
On the day in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down, I happened to be in New York City not very far from the East German Mission to the UN. On hearing the news, I remember thinking to myself in sheer amazement "we've won. This is going to change everything."
The first Bush, I believe, had a dim understanding that some "new world order" was possible, but what Washington had become during the 20th c., and in particular during the cold war, forced emphasis onto the wrong word in that phrase. The distraction of the first gulf war made matters worse by providing a fortuitous sop for the unexpended material, and more importantly, the spiritual resources and energies of the cold warriors. This, combined with the unfortunate historical coincidence of 3 woefully ill prepared and incompetent Presidents, resulted in GWOT; and GWOT will leave future historians much to figure out, from the ridiculous and immoral use of SSGNs for turning sand into glass and wedding parties into dust, to the militarization of America's police, the lock down of its airports, the infantilizing of its citizenry. This is your peace dividend. How it was squandered will have those future historians, if there is a future, scratching their heads in amazement. It never had to be. Happy 4th of July.
New York isn't the only home of shylocks and banksters. BOA is based in Charlotte and Well Fargo is based in San Francisco. Much of the bailout money went to foreign banks like Barclays, RBS and Deutsche Bank.
In 20 years, Chase will likely be the sole super bank left and based in New York, if the derivatives or shorts on silver don't kill it.